Just playing catch up like I said last time. It’s been such a great year for hip-hop so now’s not the time to slack off. I’ll do in depth shits again soon, when inspiration strikes.
E L U C I D – REVELATOR
What an apt title for both this album, and for Elucid himself. He’s always been a prophetic figure, handing down lessons you might not immediately understand in his music, but the feeling is powerful and long lasting. With this new album, he seems to find the best balance of what made his previous solo work so great; while 2016’s Save Yourself was extra dissonant and industrial, I Told Bessie felt much more Backwoodz in it’s soulful, autobiographic approach. Revelator brings back the weird production and keeps the tender love letters to Blackness within Elucid’s writing. This feels like a crowning achievement for him.
Listen to REVELATOR
Maxo Kream – Personification
The rollout for Maxo Kream’s new album goes back a whole year with the release of “Bang the Bus” and a series of strong features, which had a lot of fans excited for a more versatile project and return to unapologetic bangers. The resulting Personification mostly lives up to expectations while maintaining the growth displayed on his more recent, less acclaimed releases.
Maxo equally attacks the album with his high-level trap stories and mature topics like avoiding falling back into those ways as a family man who’s made it big now. There aren’t necessarily many standout moments outside of the singles, but the deftly curated features are great young fits for Maxo and keep the Texas scene in the forefront. You can’t be mad at this for a 2024 Maxo Kream album.
Listen to Personification
Mutant Academy – Keep Holly Alive
While I’ve been a fan of various Mutant Academy artists for a long time, it took me awhile to understand their appeal. They aren’t really bar-ing you to death; rather, they just say fly shit over some immaculately dusty production. In fact, a lineup of Foisey, Ohbliv, Ewonee, Graymatter and more might solidify them as the best rosters of in-house producers or whatever you want to call it. To have them finally all these artists come together for a full length is special because it raises the normal stakes of their work – in fact, I usually prefer their collab albums because they always bounce off each other and keep the sound fresh. Would’ve been nice to have Koncept around though.
Regardless, Keep Holly Alive is everything you love about any other Mutant Academy outing, but amplified by the unified feeling within their little collective after all these years.
Listen to Keep Holly Alive
Dthang – A Bronx Tale
If this came out in 2021 we’d be talking about it as an essential drill album. After the initial wave of stars slowed down (locked up or killed, really. Sadly the nature of this scene and it’s struggle to produce stars, but that’s another conversation), there was a small sect of guys who were just dropping singles and seemed to have potential. Among them were Sha Ek, who has easily become one of New York’s finest, Yus Gz, who fell off and was polarizing in the first place, and Dthang, who just missed his window.
While the ship has likely sailed on going mainstream, Dthang finally delivered his debut album A Bronx Tale and it’s a great achievement for NY drill. Tightly sequenced, varied flows, and surprisingly interesting beats (there’s even a “Hail Mary” flip that he absolutely murders). I would’ve expected some bigger features given his name power and ties to French Montana, but the energy is still there even years late for Dthang; with drill, that’s sometimes all it takes. If there’s still some life left in NY drill with Slizzy and 41, then hopefully there’s room for Dthang.
Listen to A Bronx Tale
Benny the Butcher & 38 Spesh – Stabbed & Shot 2
It’s hard to argue Benny’s recent output is anywhere near touching classic Griselda, but there was always that glimmer of hope that 38 Spesh could bring something back out of him; the long awaited sequel to their 2018 collab Stabbed & Shot is a pretty damn good return to form. Benny’s delivery is nowhere near as menacing or hungry as it used to be, and he tries to be a bit more articulate as an MC these days (to varying results), but over beats from V Don, Harry Fraud, etc. and next to 38 Spesh it works. Spesh on the other hand has never wavered in his sound or bars, so Benny had to really bring it in order to hang. You can tell there was a bit of friendly competition between them in the booth.
This album even gives Speshal Machinery a run for its money. It’s nice to hear them link back up after all the success, showing what they’re both still capable of but from atop the mountain this time.